NEW YORK (CNS) — “Loving” (Focus), the fact-based story behind a landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision, is so restrained that it nearly obscures the historical significance of the events it recounts. The Lovings, who lived in Virginia, married in Washington in 1958, thereby evading, temporarily at least, their home state's law forbidding interracial unions. Such “anti-miscegenation” statutes had their origins in the days of slavery but were reinforced in Southern states after the Civil War; Virginia's was enacted in 1924.Friday, December 9, 2016

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Somewhere in the planning stages of "Incarnate" (BH Tilt), someone must have thought it would be a good idea to combine elements of Christopher Nolan's 2010 tour de force "Inception" with tropes that have been familiar to moviegoers at least since Linda Blair's head went spinning round in "The Exorcist" way back in 1973.Thursday, December 8, 2016

January of 1973 was a month, as Lady Bracknell says in "The Importance of Being Earnest," "crowded with incident." For Catholic readers, the chapters on the progress through the Supreme Court of the decision that ended with Roe v. Wade may be the most disturbing, but Robenalt gives us a lucid and unbiased account of how the decision was developed. It serves to remind us of what the decision really says and not what people have made it say to further their agendas.Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Stephen White is a fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. In “Red, White, Blue and Catholic” he challenges American Catholics to understand and to live out Catholic social teaching in its fullness in their daily lives and more.Tuesday, December 6, 2016

NEW YORK (CNS) — Warren Beatty wrote, directed and stars in "Rules Don't Apply" (Fox), a loosely fact-based tale set within the secretive world of eccentric industrialist Howard Hughes (1905-1976).Sunday, December 4, 2016

NEW YORK (CNS) — Like time travelers from the Golden Age of Hollywood studio films, the characters played by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard in "Allied" (Paramount) don't allow a little event like World War II to muss their elegant coifs. Whether taking out the German ambassador in Casablanca with their burp guns or having their daughter born outdoors in London during an air raid, this perpetually chic couple keeps matters neat and nice, laundered and pressed.Friday, December 2, 2016

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The morning after screening his film, "Silence," for about 300 Jesuits, the U.S. director Martin Scorsese had a private audience with Pope Francis. During the 15-minute audience Nov. 30, Pope Francis told Scorsese that he had read Japanese author Shusaku Endo's historical novel, "Silence," which inspired the film. The book and film are a fictionalized account of the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan; the central figures are Jesuit missionaries.

As its title suggests, "Bleed for This" (Open Road) doesn't try to gloss over boxing's inherent brutality and violence. Fortunately, it doesn't wallow in it either, and is not excessively graphic. In telling the story of real-life pugilist Vinny Pazienza, nicknamed "The Pazmanian Devil," it strikes a balance between truthfully depicting the physical suffering and making inflated claims about what it might signify.

It has been 500 years since Augustinian monk and theology professor Martin Luther set off the Protestant Reformation with his call for a debate on indulgences and other burning issues in the Catholic Church at the time. Prolific Lutheran writer Martin Marty centers his reflections on Luther's 95 theses on Christ's call to repentance, arguing that repentance formed the heart of Luther's spiritual crisis.Wednesday, November 30, 2016

From the 1950s through the 1980s, Father Theodore Hesburgh was one of the most famous priests in the United States and, probably, the busiest. Robert Schmuhl, the author of “Fifty Years With Father Hesburgh,” was a student of Father Hesburgh's as an undergraduate at Notre Dame and they continued to be friends until the priest's death in 2014.Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Portland’s The Hullabaloo! theater company presents 3 Goats Gruff at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. the first two weekends of December (Dec. 3, 4, 10 and 11) at Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark St. in Portland.Monday, November 28, 2016

NEW YORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of theatrical movies and television programs on network and cable television the week of Nov. 27. Please note that televised versions may or may not be edited for language, nudity, violence and sexual situations.Sunday, November 27, 2016

NEW YORK (CNS) — Fans of British novelist P.G. Wodehouse have a special place in their hearts for one of his most memorable comic creations, a shy and eccentric newt fancier with the immortal name Augustus Fink-Nottle.

Gussie, as his pal Bertie Wooster always called him, turns out to bear some similarity to the protagonist of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (Warner Bros.).

Portland Piano International welcomes Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner to Portland for a recital on Saturday, Dec. 3, and Sunday, Dec. 4. Both performances will be at 4 p.m. in Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall. This is Mr. Goerner’s Portland debut.Thursday, November 24, 2016

Over the decades, indeed over the centuries, a good many new Catholics wrote down accounts of their conversions. Going back as far as the fifth century and St. Augustine's “Confessions,” such first-person accounts make good reading down to the present day. “Cradle Catholics” tend to be intrigued by these accounts, sometimes because they help overcome a tendency to take one's Catholicism for granted, other times because they nourish a new appreciation for being Catholic.Wednesday, November 23, 2016